Girl Scout Cookies

I meant to take a picture of Amelie with the gigantic stack of boxes of cookies when they came in, but I forgot.

Here's James - he really wanted to accompany her when she went around making her sales pitches. He's also asked several times to join the boy scouts, and it seems as though the primary motivation is that he wants to sell things.

This is at our next-door neighbor's house.

The end of the cookie-selling season was right at the beginning of the coronavirus shutdowns and it threw a big monkey wrench in everything. We ended up with MANY more boxes of cookies than I'd intended just for our family. We spread them out a box at a time for our increased coronavirus dessert times. Even so, when I gave three boxes of Thanks-a-Lots to the Ridgeway teachers who were retiring at the drive-through retirement celebration, the kids exclaimed in disappointment that we were giving some of the boxes away.

Here's Leah in her tigger costume (all the more festive) with our drive-by happy retirement sign:

And here's Amelie with her completed cookie order form. Over 200 boxes!

She's got more patches, but hasn't seen her troop in person to get them for quite a while!

It looks like I was similarly late last year - here's the post about cookie sales from June: https://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2019/07/girl-scouts.html

Mani/Pedi

Leah asked for "glitter toes."

And then the next day I talked her into a finger nail trim by saying I'd paint  her fingernails. She disagreed with me saying they were for TOES, but she eventually came around.

Playing Catch

Sam got James a new glove since his old one was too small (it might have been Amelie's at first, and now it's Leah's.)

Photobomb!

They've also been playing four square:

Well-Child DR

Amlie had her 10-year well child visit back at the end of May. Double digits!

She had to wear a mask, and I gave her a piece of gum to sweeten the deal, though she seemed pleased to pick one out and put it on. Since I was accompanying her, I had to sign in and we both had our temperatures taken at the door. The waiting room was basically empty and the seats were all spread out far apart.

I think she was excited to get out of the house. This was the first time that she'd gone out in public (inside of a building) since the whole quarantine. The doctor asked about how things were going and I brought up that she'd missed quite a lot of her services through school and we got a referral to do an assessment for occupational therapy. We did that and they recommended once a week for 8 weeks. The first week was just various assessments, which was very interesting. The OT who called to give me the results of the assessment said that she was below where she should be in several areas with regard to grip strength, etc, but that she had lots of strategies to make up for it, which we knew. We've been several times, and they're working on some things like handwriting that she was doing at school and some social skills (which she was also doing at school!)

I found a list online of 10-year milestones:

Grow about 2.5 in. (6 cm) and gain about 7 lb (3 kg) in a year. (I thought this was funny because according to the post, she'd grown exactly 2 inches and gained exactly 7 pounds since last year.) 

Have growth patterns related to gender. Signs of early puberty may develop in girls. (No signs yet, I don't think, but we have a book!) 

Lose about four baby teeth each year. These are replaced by permanent teeth. 

Know the complete date (day of the week, day of the month, month, and year).

Can name the months of the year in order. (I am not actually sure about this one, but we can work on it this summer.) 

Can read and understand a paragraph of complex sentences.

Are reading books with chapters. (Favorites are still Wings of Fire and Warrior Cats.) 

Are skilled in addition and subtraction and are building skills in multiplication, division, and fractions.

Have learned to write in cursive. (I wouldn't say that she's completely learned, but they are teaching it at school and she's practiced it. I wrote the top lines and then she copied them.) 

• Can write simple stories.
• Enjoy being with their friends. They often have a best friend of the same gender.
• Continue to enjoy team and group activities. (I mean, there's no team or group anything happening right now. I suspect that she's going to be VERY enthusiastic about any kind of group get-together as soon as she can have one.)
• Continue to insist they are not interested in children of the opposite sex. But they may show off, tease, or act silly as a way of getting attention from or interacting with them.
• Like and listen to their parents. Some children, though, will start to show irritation with or lack of respect for adults who are in charge.
• Enjoy reading. They may seek out magazines and books on subjects of special interest.
• Can converse easily with people of all different ages.
• Have speech patterns that are nearly at an adult level. 
• Have developed control of their large and small muscles. They are able to enjoy activities that use these skills, such as basketball, dancing, and soccer.
• Have developed endurance. Many can run, ride a bike, and enjoy activities that require a degree of physical conditioning.
• Continue to advance their fine motor skills, such as those needed for clearer handwriting and detailed artwork. (We're working on these last 3 milestones in OT!) 

Significant Statistics:
Height: 4 feet, 3 inches (9th percentile)
Weight: 66 pounds (30th percentile)

Here's a link to last year's appointment: https://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2019/06/doctor-visit.html

Trash Day

I posted this on my facebook page and it sparked off a discussion about our very local politics. In Columbia, trash cans are a hotly debated political issue, apparently.

Through a series of unfortunate events (including the sanitation workers being exposed to COVID), we ended up missing 3 weeks of pickup, which translates into about a month's worth of recycling to take to the curb. For his chore that day, James took out the two blue bags and carefully dragged a slightly larger-than-him box of cardboard and paper out to the big rock.

Since recycling service was (hopefully temporarily) discontinued, we'll have to find him a new chore. He feeds the dog in the morning and takes out the recycling and does other tasks as assigned - he likes laundry and vacuuming the best.

Rainbows

There will probably be a series of posts from the last couple of months, getting caught up with the picture archive. Sam took these of a big rainbow in our backyard back at the end of May.

It's hard to see in a picture!

James walking around our block in the rain.

He doesn't mind getting wet.

And then there was a big rainbow at our park towards the end of June.

I think Sam might have saturated the color in the photo above, but you can tell from this one that it was very bright anyway. He had to lie down on the grass to get the kids and the rainbow all in the same shot.

Here's me and Amelie waiting under the tree. We got caught out in the rain at the park, but it didn't last too long and then there was the rainbow :)

4th of July

We were so excited this year that MUUSA and the city's big fireworks display wouldn't overlap! Then everything happened.

I put the kids in holiday-themed outfits, because why not?

 Family photo with the tripod & timer.

We were planning on driving through Wendy's but the line went on forever, so we got expensive Baskin Robbins so as not to miss the start of the show. I asked Sam why he didn't turn the car off while I was trying to take a picture & he said because he was trying to provide some light/like a flash. ha. 

 I'd heard that the display was going to be a lot higher than normal - visible for a 4 mile radius. Sam's work is one mile from Cosmo-Bethel park, so we parked there. I think there were too many trees and maybe the fireworks didn't make it up as high as they'd planned. 

So we scooted over to an adjacent lot where we could see better - it was really quite nice other than the last-minute scramble.

 Happy slightly belated Independence Day!

Mark Twain State Park

Long time no post!

We just got back from a mini summer vacation at Mark Twain State Park. We'd planned on a weeklong vacation over spring break, which was cancelled due to Covid, then a state park cabin, also cancelled, and then our annual summer vacation/camp was cancelled as well. I finally decided that we could pretty easily go socially distance in a new location and booked one of the last remaining cabins/yurts through the Missouri State Parks website. In fact, when I booked back on June 5, there were only 2 lodging reservations left - this one and one at Lake of the Ozarks where they've had a surge of Covid cases. Mark Twain is just a little over an hour from Columbia. I think they must have had some occupancy limits in place, there were several empty campsites despite a large "no vacancy" sign posted at the entrance. It wasn't crowded or busy despite being fourth of July weekend. We were able to keep our distance the whole time except once with a kiddo in the restroom, though it did feel weird not encouraging the kids to make friends/play with the other kids since there was a playground area.

We packed up all of our worldly belongings and arrived early Wednesday afternoon. The cabin was so nice!

I was confused checking in - then I checked my email and they'd send me an email with check-in procedure at 10am (when I was cleaning and trying to get ready to leave) that said to scan the code and check in through the state park's website, and in case of "connectivity problems" there would be alternate check-in procedures posted onsite. Well, we were out in the middle of the state park and I had no internet, but they left the key at the cabin and we got in and set up and figured we could ask about it later. (It did end up going through when we drove out to the public beach, which is good because I never saw any alternate posted anywhere). 

Leah in her swim shirt at the picnic table.

Mama and James cooking s'mores.

More s'mores.

And Leah eating a s'more. If you couldn't tell, we had s'mores for dessert every night. Our routine was to eat an earlyish supper, go swim from 6-8 and then come back and shower/change and have s'mores.

More camp cooking.

We forgot the hotdog buns and the hamburger buns and the ketchup but somehow the kids survived. I thought Sam was in charge of the food and he thought he was just in charge of the cooler. We put the non-cooler stuff we'd bought straight into the tote and I was putting other stuff in the tote as it occurred to me, which turned out to be pretty much everything, I guess!

Sam did quite a lot of nature photography:

The weather was nice for us the whole time, except that it thundered when we woke up on the last day and threatened to rain so we couldn't get in a 4th swim. It probably also helped that there was a mini air conditioner in the cabin.

Amelie in her swim shirt. 

We drove a little bit through the tiny unincorporated village of Florida, MO and saw several deer up close and a skunk!

You can swim anywhere in the lake as long as it isn't a designated boating area, and there was this rocky swimming hole very close to our cabin that we had to ourselves. James and I swam across and saw a snake swimming in the water - so we hurried up and swam back. We all stayed over two hours and then Sam and James stayed even longer.

More swimming near the cabin. We borrowed the floaties from Grandma Mary. We swam at the public beach twice, too, and it wasn't crowded at all - I think it helps that we went during the middle of the week and also that we went after supper - though unfortunately no pics from the other sandy beach.

We did a nature hike that went about like the nature hike last time. The weather was good, and James was enthusiastic for the first part, then we got off on the other trail and ended up going farther that we'd planned.

I carried Leah most of the way - she fell and got a bloody knee when she wanted to get down and walk, but she didn't act like it bothered her. I would say, "Look at those white flowers, look at the pink flowers," etc and she'd go a little bit  up the trail and exclaim, "I FOUND THEM!"

Lots of moss!

The last night, we were out and heard rustling in the woods. Sam wanted to shine the flashlight and I said he shouldn't  in case it was our neighbor out there peeing, but he did, and there was a family of two babies and one adult raccoon staring back at us! It was the cutest thing ever! They looked adorable peering out at us from behind the tree. We turned the light off and they kept rustling around, so we turned it back on and they looked at us some more. This picture doesn't quite adequately capture the cuteness. We stored all the food and trash in the cabin (and the cabins next to us, did, too) so I'm not sure why they were rummaging so close. We made sure to burn the marshmallow sticks after that.

I already mentioned the snake, the deer, the skunk, and the raccoons - there was so much wildlife/nature on this trip. There was another big long stripy snake that did a faux rattle in the woods behind the cabin and lots and lots of tiny toads down at the swimming hole and more bigger frogs in the campground. Once at the public beach, there were seagulls sweeping and diving right by us, plus the usual spiders and ants and squirrels and rabbits.

The cabin had a little bedroom, a futon in the living area, and then this carpeted sleeping loft above the porch.

Drawing pictures at the table.

They were big, big fans of the lofted area. It was hard to take a picture up there, but we tried several times. 

I liked all the pegs everywhere, especially since we did so much swimming. This photo doesn't show it, but they went all the way around the room and I used most of them.

Sam wanted to take pics of the cabin before we left.

I tried to put the futon up into a couch when we arrived, but Leah was not having it - she wanted to sprawl out on the whole futon bed. She stayed up til after 10pm both nights, I think.

I took our queen sheets, since that's what we have even though I assumed it would be a full bed, but it did turn out to be a queen, so that was lucky.